( torah she-be-al peh) in contrast to the Written Torah ( torah she-bichtav), the instruction God gave to Israel at Sinai contained in the five books of Moses. The Oral Torah consists of forty-two verbal commandments given to Moses at Sinai, and the precepts and interpretations implied in the Written Torah. It also came to include the legal decisions of rabbinical courts and the oral traditions received from earlier generations of Torah scholars.
Name applied to the oral traditions of the Pharisees and then the rabbis. The traditions were collected and written down in rabbinic literature, and were thought to have been given to Moses on Sinai with the written Torah, and then passed down through the generations orally.
The tradition that in addition to the written Torah, the first 5 books of the Bible, there was an oral tradition given to Moses, written down and compiled much later.
The Mishnah. According to traditional Jews, part of the Torah received by Moses at Sinai but not written down until c. 200 CE as the Mishnah.
Jewish teachings explaining and elaborating on the Written Torah, handed down orally until the Second century c.e.
(also called oral law) In traditional Jewish pharisaic/rabbinic thought, God revealed instructions for living through both the written scriptures and through a parallel process of orally transmitted traditions; these oral applications of the Torah for contemporary situations later took written form in the Mishnah and other Jewish literature; the Jewish belief in both a written and an oral torah is known as "the dual Torah"; critics of this approach within Judaism include the Sadducees and the Karaites. See Conclusion.
The Oral Torah (or Oral Law or Oral Tradition) (Torah she-be-`al peh תורה שבעל פה), according to Rabbinic Judaism, is Jewish (Torah) Law that was recorded by later rabbis, generally of the Mishnah and Talmud but sometimes later, as reflecting a received oral tradition. (See Oral law for broader application.)